EGMONT Royal Institute for International Relations
No. [ ]
[Date]
No. 132
December 2020
Biden’s World? Views from the United States, China, Russia, and the European Union
Sven Biscop & Alexey Gromyko (Editors)
The COVID-19 pandemic prevented the
annual joint seminars that since a few years the
Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of
Sciences and the Egmont – Royal Institute for
International Relations organise in Moscow
and Brussels. But the coronavirus cannot
interrupt academic exchange; a dialogue that
is more than ever necessary in a world of
increasing tensions between the great powers.
We continue our collaboration through this
joint publication, therefore, for which we have
invited prominent scholars from Russia and
the European Union as well as China and the
United States to share their analysis of the
impact of Joe Biden’s victory in the US
presidential elections on international politics.
SCARCITY AND STRATEGY: THE FOREIGN
POLICY OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION
BARRY R. POSEN
Bernard Brodie, one of the progenitors of post-
cold war strategic studies used to say that
“strategy wears a dollar sign”. States have many
foreign and security policy goals from which to
choose. But resources of every kind are always
scarce. It is the task of strategy to set priorities for
the allocation of scarce resources. Though policy
analysts across the world are trying to guess what
will be the contours of the Biden
Administration’s grand strategy, statements alone
do not get us very far. A fundamental question is
whether he and his advisors perceive resource
scarcity or resource plenty. Below I make some
guesses based on the assumption that they see a
world of scarcity.
What kinds of scarcity does the Administration
face? First is a scarcity of extant military
resources. With a defence budget of $700 billion
per year one wonders how such resources could
be scarce. But they are. Modern military power is
enormously costly to purchase and to operate. A
casual reading of the US military press suggests
that the US force has been worked too hard in
the last two decades. It is for this reason that one
now hears that the Pentagon plans to focus anew
on great power wars. The implication is that
turning away from nation-building and counter-
insurgency will free resources to contain Russia
and China. But Russia and China are not minor
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military competitors. And though it seems
possible that Russia will have a difficult time
sustaining its recent military improvements,
China has barely scratched the surface of what it
can do. Extant military resources are already
scarce.
Second, the Administration faces a scarcity of
money. Though there are certainly western
economists who claim that advanced economies
can continue to borrow vast sums not only to
fight and recover from the pandemic, but to
address climate change and income inequality,
there are others who would say that this cannot
go on forever. Even if the Democrats take the
Senate, it is unlikely that they will be comfortable
simply adding to the deficit both to fix the US,
and to continue to defend all the extended
ramparts of the “US-led liberal world order”.
Biden has won the Presidency largely on Donald
Trump’s failure to look after the US public.
Fighting the pandemic, and then fixing the
economy will be job No. 1 for Biden.
Third, despite the President’s convincing double
victories in the popular and the electoral votes, he
nevertheless faces a scarcity of political capital.
The American politics pundits agree: his coattails
were short. There was no blue wave to bring him
deep political reserves of support in the House
and Senate and in the State legislatures. Donald
Trump’s total popular vote was the second
greatest in US history, Biden’s total the first.
President Biden will need to husband his political
capital. He will spend it on the issues that will
yield him the greatest political support, and those
are domestic.
If President elect Biden and his advisors see these
constraints, how might it affect what they actually
do? Even a casual reading of Biden’s March 2020
Foreign Affairs article “Why America Must Lead
Again”, suggests that US internal problems loom
large: fixing up the US polity, society, and
economy consumes the first half of the article.
And anyone who paid much attention to the
recent presidential campaign would have noticed
that foreign policy played a minor role. The
principal discussion was about which candidate
would be harder on China. This gives us a hint as
to where the major overseas priority of the
Administration will be – Asia, because the
candidates vied with one another expressing a
hard line. Polling data (if such can be quoted with
a straight face in the US, after the predictive
failures of the last two presidential campaigns)
suggests that the public is quite concerned about
China, though some have economic concerns
while others have security concerns. Containing
China is popular in both the Democratic and
Republican parties. As Biden wants to work with
Republicans, the containment of China may be
the path of least resistance to some bipartisan
policy successes. China’s rise would be a serious
security matter even if the American public were
not interested. A focus on China in US foreign
and security policy, to include trade and
technology, is thus almost inevitable. And given
the size of the China challenge, and the scarcity
of security resources, there is not going to be
much left for anything else.
The rest of America’s allies should take some
comfort from a return to normalcy at least in
terms of the US foreign policy process. But allies
in Europe and the Middle East should take note.
Sure, the Biden administration will work
multilaterally on problems of collective concern,
such as nuclear proliferation, climate change, and
even trade. But it may not be long before those
who hope for a return to the old days find
themselves disappointed. President elect Biden
says many nice things about the Transatlantic
Alliance. But if scarcity is real, he will be looking
for a better bargain. All agree that a European-US
partnership to address the neo-mercantilist
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aspects of Chinese foreign policy would be of
great help. The European Union would loom
large in such a partnership, though Americans
frankly do not quite understand the Union and
how it works. But saying this does not make it so.
Europeans will need to organize their own China
strategy, and find areas of overlap with the US.
Europe depends far more on international trade
than does the US. It is likely that Europeans will
need to make some hard choices about how hard-
nosed they wish to be on China, and these
choices may not overlap with those of the US.
Similarly, Europeans will notice, if they have not
already noticed, that Asia is a magnet for US
military resources. US interest in military burden-
sharing antedates President Trump, even if it was
expressed more artfully. The situation is getting
worse. The European members of NATO are,
due to distance, inefficient contributors to the
military containment of China. They are,
however, potentially very efficient contributors
to the containment of Russia. Expect continuing
pressure to do more.
Finally, what shall we expect of policy for the
greater Middle East? Israel will be fine, but not
the Palestinians. It is simply not worth the
political cost for a US President to pressure Israel
to do much of anything. As we move eastward,
however, things get interesting. President elect
Biden and his advisors seem to take climate
change quite seriously. So do European
statespersons. Sooner or later the fundamental
question will arise: why should the US continue
to commit blood and treasure to the Persian Gulf
to defend a low price for the oil that we now
know to be poisonous to the planet? And given
an aroused progressive wing of the Democratic
Party, why defend profoundly illiberal regimes
that show no sign of reform whatsoever? Why
defend a cartel that periodically fixes the price of
oil in order to bankrupt US domestic producers,
and put their employees out of work? There will
be cross cutting pressures of course. Iran simply
has no friends in the US and has no way to get
any. Oil prices and supply will matter to
prosperity in the west for perhaps another
decade. The Arab petro-states effectively use the
main tool at their disposal – money – to garner
influence in Washington. But the gravitational
pull of petroleum on policy is beginning to wane
and US policy-makers will focus their attention
elsewhere.
These projections depend on Biden and his
advisors’ perceptions of scarce resources. But
perhaps resources will prove more plentiful than
I imagine. The shortages of military, financial,
and political capital discussed above could be
evanescent. The US economy is quite resilient
and innovative. Our opponents may prove less
strong than they appear at present. The American
public might at heart be as outward looking and
internationalist as some pollsters contend, and
never again support Trumpian transactionalism.
The clever and well-resourced US military may
come up with another wave of technological
innovations that leave their opponents’ heads
spinning. If these emerge quickly as the actual
facts of the case, then US allies in Europe can
return to the happy days of the late 1990s, when
security was a free good provided by a benevolent
hegemon at the helm of the liberal world order.
But I would not bet on it.
Dr. Barry R. Posen is Ford International
Professor of Political Science at MIT, and
Director Emeritus of the MIT Security
Studies Program. He is the author of
numerous articles and books, including
“Europe Can Defend Itself” (in: Survival,
Vol. 62, 2020, No. 6), and Restraint: A New
Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy, (Cornell
University Press, 2014).
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BIDEN’S GEOPOLITICAL FALLOUT FOR
CHINA
FENG ZHONGPING & HUANG JING
No one will be surprised to learn that Beijing has
been following the American election closely.
Who is in the White House means a lot not only
for Sino-US relations, but also for US policies
toward Europe, Russia, and China’s neighbours.
A Silver Lining for Sino-US Relations?
Chinese decision-makers and think-tankers have
been distressed by the unpredictability that
Donald Trump brought to US foreign policy in
the past four years. President-elect Joe Biden,
who is a former US Vice-President and a foreign
policy veteran, is deemed to be more predictable.
Many of his advisers used to serve in the Barack
Obama administration, while Biden himself has
had numerous encounters with the Chinese
leadership during his political career.
But Beijing knows very well that President Biden
will not stop the US from seeing China as a
competitor. It is after all Barack Obama, the
President that Biden served as Vice-President,
who “pivoted to Asia”. Obama even claimed
recently that “if we hadn’t been going through a
financial crisis, my posture toward China would
have been more explicitly contentious around
trade issues”.
The US will not change its strategic focus: dealing
with the rise of China. The change will be in the
approach. Trump’s key word is decoupling. What
will be Biden’s? Biden will not go as far as
decoupling. Nor will he go back to the old
engagement policy.
Presumably, Biden’s approach will be a
moderated containment. He will work with allies,
which will make his dealings with China easier,
but also less blunt. He will not support the idea
of an economic cut-off, but might seek
decoupling in certain fields, such as technology,
instead. He might rekindle the cooperation with
Beijing on climate change and on regional
hotspots such as North Korea, Iran, and
Afghanistan.
A Transatlantic Reset?
Biden has received overwhelmed support across
the Atlantic. Europeans are much more
enthusiastic than China about the new president.
Transatlantic policy might turn out to be one of
the biggest policy changes after the power
reshuffle in Washington.
No doubt, Biden will try to strengthen
transatlantic bonds once he is in office. His
proposal of a Democracy Summit has already
aroused much enthusiasm among US allies. His
choice of Antony Blinken, whose ties to Europe
are said to be lifelong, deep and personal, as his
Secretary of State sends a strong signal.
According to a think-tank speech in July, Blinken
said: “China sees alliances as a core source of
strength for the United States, something they
don’t share and enjoy”.1
Judging from Biden’s speeches during the
campaign trail, the next US president will return
to the Paris Agreement on climate change, a
European pet project, and re-enter the US in
many multilateral institutions that Trump has, or
has threatened to, quit. Biden probably will listen
to his European counterparts on the Iran nuclear
deal, another European diplomatic feat that has
been destroyed by Trump, and might even find
ways to make a new one.
Of course, Europe understands that Biden
cannot change everything. The US presidential
race was so close that although he has won the
election, he represents only half of a divided
nation. Not to mention that Biden will be
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hindered by partisan gridlock in Congress.
Besides, Biden’s focus will be on domestic issues
and China, not on Europe. In a word, Trumpism
will somehow continue without Trump.
Therefore, the Europeans hold steadfast to the
ideal of strategic autonomy, a concept predating
but much focused on during the Trump years.
The geopolitical upheaval has left the Europeans
with few choices at hand. Politicians in Brussels
and in European capitals have vowed that
Europe should not be reduced to a “playground”
or a “colony”. Toward the end of Trump’s term,
strategic autonomy became the loudest answer to
the new geopolitical contingency.
Though German officials might be a little bit less
interested than their French friends in the
concept of autonomy, as the recent spat between
German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-
Karrenbauer and French President Emmanuel
Macron on the American security umbrella has
revealed,2 such schisms should not be overplayed.
The Europeans will find no difficulty to get past
this difference about the meaning of words. As
Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union
for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, put on his
blog: “a capable and strategically aware Europe is
the best partner for the US – and also what
Europe itself needs”. 3
In his call to Biden in November 23, European
Council President Charles Michel identified the
following fields to cooperate: the COVID-19
pandemic, economic recovery, climate change,
security, and multilateralism.4 But observers from
the rest of the world might be more interested to
see how the two sides solve their trade and digital
disputes as a start.
New thinking on China’s neighbourhood?
After the election, Biden’s first official call to
foreigners was made to the Canadian Prime
Minister, on 9 November. The next day, he called
the UK, Ireland, Germany, and France. The day
after, he called Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
Such an order might say something about Biden’s
regional priorities in terms of alliances.
The Obama administration used to woo Asian-
Pacific countries with a free trade zone, the
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
Nevertheless, Trump withdrew from TPP within
the first week of taking office, and the remaining
TPP members have tried to save the agreement
as CPTPP, or Comprehensive and Progressive
Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden
might consider going back to a revised CPTPP.
His interest might increase when considering the
announcement of the Regional Comprehensive
Economic Partnership (RCEP) on 15 November
by 15 Asian-Pacific countries, as well as Chinese
president Xi Jinping’s subsequent publicly
declared interest in joining CPTPP. “The RCEP
deal shows quite conclusively that the Trump
Administration’s strategy to isolate China and to
cut it off from global value chains has failed”, as
a European observer aptly put.5
If Biden meets with domestic resistance against
joining a trade agreement with the region, he will
have to think hard about how to assure US allies
such as Australia, New Zealand, South Korea,
and Japan, who are concerned about China’s
rising influence, but meanwhile also continue to
work for closer economic ties with the
powerhouse.
For Biden, it is easier to deal with another Trump
legacy in the region, namely, the Indo-Pacific
Strategy, with an increasingly active security
Quad (comprising the US, Japan, India, and
Australia) at its centre.
India is a very important neighbour of China. In
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2017, India joined the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, a sign of its good relationship with
China and Russia. But 2020 has seen the outbreak
of clashes on the Sino-Indian border, and waves
of clamping down on Chinese apps on the Indian
market. Things could have been better without
the Quad or the US’ global campaign against
Chinese technology, some Chinese strategists
think.
Compared to Trump, Biden might be a little bit
more critical toward India. Actually, he called the
Indian leader five days later than his calls with
Japan and Australia. Though Biden will carry
ahead the Indo-Pacific Strategy, his more
balanced approach toward India might help
China and India to better navigate their disputes.
A Bitter Russia?
Four years ago, Russia was among the happiest to
seen Donald Trump elected. Russia hoped that
an anti-establishment US president would change
Russia’s post-Cold War strategic impasse.
Nevertheless, due to the deeply entrenched
animosity toward Russia in the US establishment,
Trump was not able to visit Russia or to receive
the Russian leader on American soil even once,
let alone to change US policy on Russia – the
ongoing sanctions because of Russia’s annexation
of the Crimea in 2014 are a useful reminder. For
Russia, Trump is a lost opportunity.
It seems that the Kremlin is very reluctant to
congratulate Biden with his victory. The
Democrats have long held a negative perception
of Russia. The recent revision of the Russian
constitution and the turbulence in Belarus might
perpetuate this perception.
Two Blocs?
Will a more cooperative US president draw US
allies together against another bloc led by China?
First, such a prospect seems not on Biden’s wish
list. Second, it simply does not work.
In the past four years, US allies already tried to
cooperate on issues related to China, sometimes
along with the US, sometimes not. For example,
Europe and Canada have a very good
cooperation record on climate change; Europe
and Japan have worked consistently on WTO
reform; France and Germany have resorted to
Australia on their Indo-Pacific strategies. But the
cooperation has been case-by-case.
US allies have their own interests. Some
European think-tankers urge the EU to “learn
from Japan’s adept economic diplomacy”. Japan
has navigated successfully between China and the
US, striking trade deals with both as well as with
the EU, they argue.6
Europe will not do everything on US terms. In
terms of the economy, Europe and the US are
competitors. The common challenge of the
China Model might push Europe and the US
closer on economic issues. However, Europe
does not just see China as a strategic rival. The
EU’s definition of China is a more complicated
one, mixing partner, competitor, and rival.
Europe will continue to engage China.
Furthermore, global issues such as climate change
and the pandemic might lead to wide cooperation
among China, the US, Europe, and many others.
China’s pledge of net-zero emission by 2060 has
already cleared a path for a good start.
Prof. Dr. Feng Zhongping is the Vice-
President of the China Institutes of
Contemporary Relations (CICIR). Dr. Huang
Jing is an Associate Research Professor at
CICIR.
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THIRTEEN POINTS ON JOE BIDEN AND
RUSSIA
ANDREY KORTUNOV
1. Narratives
Russian leadership tried hard to avoid any
statements that would indicate its preference for
Donald Trump. Still, it is clear that the election of
Joe Biden does not quite fit into the official
Russian narrative on the contemporary
international system. Biden’s predecessor in the
White House with his explicit nationalistic,
unilateralist, and transactional approach to
foreign policy, was regarded in Moscow as a
graphic manifestation of prevailing global trends
away from globalization, value-based politics, and
Western hegemony. If Biden is at least partially
successful in his attempts to restore
multilateralism and Western solidarity and to
promote a global shift to a new cycle of
globalization, his success will be a blow to the
image of the world that the Russian leadership
likes to present. A new consolidation of the West,
no matter how temporary, is at odds with the
official Kremlin narrative about the inexorable
movement of the international system toward a
polycentric world order. Worse still, it might give
the collective West new confidence. In addition,
a new reconciliation between the US and its
traditional Western allies will be a major blow to
the various Western populists and nationalists for
whom Trump is a role model, and will tip the
political scales against them. It will also hurt some
of the Kremlin’s political partners abroad. A
Biden victory can inject new life into proponents
of the Western liberal values that Vladimir Putin
has already written off as hopelessly obsolete.
2. Priorities
When the Democratic President finally gets
down to his foreign policy agenda, it is not likely
that the Russian portfolio will sit on top of it. The
new US President is not obsessed with Moscow
to the same extent as some Republicans were (e.g.
late Senator John McCain). Joe Biden is more
likely to focus on the transatlantic relations that
were seriously damaged by his predecessor.
Another burning matter is a trade agreement with
China: it will not end the US-Chinese economic
or technological competition, but can at least help
to prevent a full-fledged trade war between
Washington and Beijing. In sum, Biden can allow
himself to put most of the Russia files on a back
burner, with the possible exception of the
pending strategic arms control question. It
implies that we will not see an early US-Russian
summit in 2021; at best, the two leaders could
meet on the margins of a multilateral event, like
the G20 or APEC, to compare notes on issues of
common interest.
3. Attitude
Donald Trump never drew a line between
Vladimir Putin and Russia. He always argued that
Putin was a very strong, skilled, and efficient
leader, doing his best to advance Russia’s national
interests. Joe Biden does not share this
admiration for the Russian President; on the
contrary, he seems to believe that Putin is a major
contributor to the historic decline of Russia as a
state and as a society. In the eyes of Biden,
Putin’s kleptocracy, political authoritarianism, the
so-called “vertical of power”, and other specific
features of his system constitute a major obstacle
for Russia’s social and economic modernization.
In Biden’s view, to be anti-Putin does not mean
to be anti-Russian; on the contrary, fighting
against Putin in the end is the best assistance to
the Russian people that the US could possibly
offer.
4. Domestic Constraints
The good news for US-Russian relations is the
fact that so far US authorities have detected no
significant Russian involvement in the election of
2020. This does not necessarily mean that this
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matter will disappear completely from Biden’s
radar screen, but it is not likely to affect the
American domestic political agenda of 2021 as
much as it did back in 2017. On the other hand,
with Republicans in control of the Senate, Joe
Biden will be significantly constrained in what he
can do in foreign policy, the Russian dimension
included. Capitol Hill will be in a position to play
an active role in sanctions policy toward Russia,
in the modernization of US nuclear forces, in
limiting White House autonomy in matters like
the JCPOA or in decisions related to the US
military presence abroad. The influence of the
legislative power on US-Russian relations is likely
to be mostly negative, especially if Russia remains
in some way an issue in US partisan politics.
5. Human Rights
The “bad side” of Biden for Russia will start
manifesting itself in much harder and
uncompromising rhetoric targeting the Russian
leadership. Since Joe Biden, unlike Donald
Trump, is not a fan of Vladimir Putin, the former
will not be shy to express his uncomplimentary
views on the Russian leader. Moreover, Biden will
pay more attention to human rights problems in
Russia; he will extend more support to political
opposition in Russia as well as to politicized civil
society institutions. He will also demonstrate
more sympathy for democratic states in the
Russian neighbourhood, from Ukraine to
Georgia (that might also include more active
support for the democratic opposition in
Belarus). US support of Kyiv is likely to grow,
including various forms of military assistance.
6. Sanctions
Anti-Russian sanctions will undoubtedly remain
one of the prime US policy instruments in dealing
with Moscow. We will see more of them and the
only question is whether the Biden
Administration preserves the overall approach of
the Trump Administration, or whether it will
rather try to bring these sanctions to a new, much
higher level. No doubt, there will be temptations
to suffocate the Russian economy by imposing a
comprehensive set of sanctions on Russia’s
energy and financial sectors, and by treating
Moscow the same way the US treated Tehran
during the four Trump years. However, bringing
sanctions to a new level would create too many
risks for the global economic system in general
and for the US economy in particular. It is not
likely that the Biden Administration will be ready
to take such risks, especially when it has to deal
with so many other economic and financial
challenges.
7. Arms Control
The Biden Administration is likely to be generally
better than the Trump Administration. The
President elect has never supported the
irresponsible attitude of his predecessor to arms
control at large or to bilateral US-Russian arms
control in particular. He might well try to rescue
the New START and to abide informally by the
provisions of the INF, which the United States
withdrew from in the summer of 2019. He is
likely to pay more attention to the NPT, the
CTBT, and other multilateral nuclear arms
agreements that Trump did not consider of top
importance for the US. However, this does not
mean that bilateral US-Russian arms control has
a bright future under Biden – any agreements
beyond the New START will be very difficult to
negotiate and to get ratified by the US side. Many
fundamental disagreements between Moscow
and Washington, on such issues as tactical
nuclear weapons, ballistic missile defence,
engaging China and other nuclear powers, etc.,
will not disappear under the new administration.
It is also clear that the Biden Administration will
have to start reviewing and revising the old
paradigm of strategic arms control, in order to
catch up with the latest technological
developments (space, cyber, AI, autonomous
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lethal systems, prompt strike, etc.).
8. Regional Problems
Another change in US foreign policy under Biden
is that Russia can benefit from is the potential
softening of the US position on Iran, and a more
balanced US approach to the Middle East peace
process. The Kremlin would undoubtedly
welcome the US getting back to the JCPOA, or
putting more emphasis on multilateral
approaches to an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.
Unlike some of his colleagues in the Barack
Obama administration, Joe Biden has always
been quite sceptical about US military
interventions abroad, and he actively opposed US
engagement in Libya back in 2011. However, it is
unlikely that the Biden Administration will
actively seek collaboration with Moscow on
Libya ten years later, or that it will seek more US-
Russian interaction in and around Syria. One can
predict that Biden will be more persistent than
Trump in accusing Russia of destabilizing actions
in fragile states, primarily in Africa. It is also
possible that the Biden Administration will
exercise more pressure on Russia’s illiberal allies
in Latin America (Venezuela, Cuba, and
Nicaragua).
9. Global Commons
The decision of Biden to get the US back to the
Paris agreements on climate change might open
new opportunities for limited US-Russian
cooperation in this domain. However, it remains
unclear to what extent the Kremlin is ready to
commit itself in a serious way to the global
climate change agenda. Another area for
cooperation on global commons is the Arctic
region. In the spring of 2021, Russia takes the
leadership of the Arctic Council and both sides
are interested to keep this institution separated
from the geopolitical competition in other
regions of the world. This task does not look
impossible to achieve, though there are risks of
the Council turning into yet another podium for
US-Russian political infighting.
10. European Dimension
A likely change in transatlantic relations will also
have an impact on Russia’s foreign policy. Of
course, the numerous political, economic, and
strategic differences between Washington and
Brussels will not just disappear, and certainly,
there will be no return to the good old days of
Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Still, Biden, with
his foreign policy experience and his inclination
to compromise, will work diligently to restore
transatlantic relations. Under Biden, we will likely
see more flexibility from Washington on trade
talks with the EU, more readiness to consider the
EU’s opinion on US approaches to global
problems, and increased attention to European
positions on regional crises. A change of
administration in the White House will likely
reduce, though not eliminate, the EU’s interest in
normalizing relations with Russia. Having agreed
a truce on the western front, Brussels will be
more than capable of swiftly transferring its
forces to the eastern front, taking a harder line
towards the Kremlin. A Democratic US
President will likely applaud such a strategic
move, seeing the standoff with Russia as a way of
cementing the transatlantic partnership. In all
likelihood, a Biden victory will severely limit
Russia’s room for manoeuvre in its EU policy,
and perhaps in its broader foreign policy too. A
more united West might consolidate itself not
only on an anti-Russian platform, but also, to a
lesser degree, against China.
11. Chinese Dimension
The incoming Biden Administration might try to
tear apart the Russian-Chinese strategic
partnership by trying to cut a deal with either
Russia or China and to focus on the remaining
opponent. Biden can follow Donald Trump, who
called for accommodating Moscow and
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confronting Beijing. Still, it is highly unlikely that
Joe Biden can be more successful in pursuing this
goal than his predecessor was. The US simply has
nothing to offer to President Putin to make him
reconsider his current close friendship with
Chairman Xi Jinping – be it in the economic,
political or strategic domain. Biden can play on
the opposite side of the stage, seek an acceptable
accommodation with the stronger Beijing, and
put the squeeze on the weaker Moscow.
However, in this case the Biden Administration
will have to abandon its claim to global American
leadership. Certainly, neither Biden nor his
entourage are ready to do that, and Washington-
Beijing relations will remain complicated and
tense. Even more importantly, just as Donald
Trump saw repeatedly throughout the four years
of his presidency that it was impossible to tear
Russia away from China, Joe Biden will
repeatedly see that China cannot be torn away
from Russia. Beijing needs Moscow regardless of
the current state of and prospects for China-US
relations. Under the current circumstances a
version of “dual containment” appears to be the
most likely approach of this Administration
towards Beijing and Moscow, with China being
treated more as a peer competitor and Russia as
a global rogue state. To cut the costs of dual
containment, Biden will try to mobilize the US’
Western allies in Europe and in East Asia. It will
also try to keep Eurasia divided by forging
stronger ties to Chines adversaries in Asia –
above all, to India.
12. Diplomacy
Biden may decide to stop the ongoing
“diplomatic war” with Russia – he arguably
values professional diplomacy much more than
Trump did, and he is not likely to keep the
Russian Embassy in Washington (and the US
Embassy in Moscow) in the state of a besieged
fortress. In general, Biden will delegate more
authority and more power to foreign policy
experts and professionals (“Deep State”)
including those of them who will hold the Russia
portfolio; therefore, US policy toward Russia is
likely to be more consistent, realistic, and
predictable. Some of the now frozen diplomatic,
military, and expert communication lines
between the two countries are likely to be
reactivated, which will also mitigate risks of an
uncontrolled confrontation. However, this does
not mean that the relationship will get much
better.
13. Beyond Biden
Today we can only guess whether President
Biden will serve his full first term in office or
whether we may see him succeeded by Vice-
President Kamala Harris. It also remains to be
seen what she has to contribute to US foreign
policy in general and to US-Russia relations in
particular. Still, any “re-set” in these relations
looks very unlikely under either Biden or Harris.
At best, one can foresee a very limited détente
and a better management of the very difficult and
mostly adversarial relationship. A real shift in this
relationship might take place after the
Presidential election of 2024, when new
generations of political leaders replace the “old
guard” in both countries. These new generations
are destined to have very different views of the
world and of their respective country’s role in
global affairs.
Andrey Kortunov is the Director-General of
the Russian International Affairs Council
(RIAC), and a member of expert and
supervisory committees and boards of trustees
of several Russian and international
organizations.
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EUROPE AFTER THE US ELECTIONS:
BETWEEN THE PAST AND THE UNKNOWN
ALEXEY GROMYKO
Brussels, the established centre of the EU, Berlin,
Paris, and other Member State capitals met the
victory of Joseph Biden in a mood of uplift and
cheering. The last four years with Donald Trump
turned into the most difficult challenge
transatlantic solidarity ever encountered. Trump
became the personification, and a very rough one
at that, of the US policy of strategic decoupling
from the European allies of the last decades. For
a long time this policy was an undeclared one,
more an undercurrent then the waves raging on
the surface. Before it was like grass growing
slowly and quietly; with Trump it was thrown into
stark relief.
There were times when West Europeans
themselves were musing on the virtues of going
it alone. Then, before 2003 and immediately after,
when the words “strategic autonomy” were not
yet coined, Berlin, Paris, and numbers of
influential British intellectuals urged their countries to
acquire more foreign policy actorness, questioning
the tradition of following the leader on the other
shore of the pond no matter what. The
intervention in Iraq and its aftermath were so
surreal, indefensible, and bloody that many
Europeans were prepared to decouple by themselves.
However, the factor of Barack Obama stalled this
process and streamlined the geopolitical moods
in Europe. Still, for the unbiased observer the
fundamentals did not change — the US kept
drifting away from the Old World.
In the years of the Obama presidency this drift
got its name — “pivot to Asia”. In Russia it is
called a “turn to the East”. No matter how we
identify this geopolitical shift, in essence it
reflects the objective process of the last 30 years
— the ascendancy of Asia, first of all China, to
the status of a new centre of power and a new
axis of world politics.
There is little for Europe to complain about. The
euro-centrism of international relations became a
thing of the past as far back as 1945. Some
European empires were buried by the First World
War, some by the Second, or they collapsed in its
aftermath. Afterwards, for a long time Western
Europe was in the shadow of two superpowers
— the Soviet Union and the United States. Today
world politics, the structure of which is not any
more bipolar but polycentric, increasingly is
revolving around interaction between China and
the US.
In spite of the ordeal for the US-European bonds
of the Trump years, the traditional part of the
Euro-Atlantic establishment, the Atlanticists,
have preserved strong positions. They adhere to
a vision of international affairs as defined by the
West, understood as an alliance of (neo)liberal
democracies led by the US.
In parallel, in the last years another current in the
EU political elites has been gaining strength —
autonomists. These are those, mainly West
European, who think that it is an urgent necessity
to promote the vision of a more politically
autonomous and independent European Union.
The ideas of a common strategic culture have
been spreading intensively, especially since 2016,
and the structures of the Common Security and
Defence Policy have solidified. The autonomists’
vision of international affairs is based on the
principle of strategic autonomy, which implies,
beside other things, the double autonomy from
the US and from China, although with natural
asymmetry in favour of the American ally.
The competition between these two parts of the
European political establishment has been
growing for a long time, but recently it has
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sharpened. The personal factor of the outgoing
American president played its significant role, but was
not the fundamental reason. There is also a third
prominent category of the European political class —
Eurosceptics of all sorts, but this issue is not a topic of
the present piece.
The Atlanticists hold that under Joe Biden US-
EU relations should return, figuratively speaking,
to the times of Barack Obama. The autonomists
agree that the Biden administration will be much
more friendly to the EU and NATO, but they
think that this is not a compelling argument to
jettison the goal of strategic autonomy. They ask
a reasonable question: “Fine, under the President
elect transatlantic ties will regain some strength.
But what may happen in four years’ time when
Trump or somebody else like him returns to the
White House? Let’s become more independent
whoever is at the helm of power in the US”.
Apparently, a staunch supporter of this approach
is French President Emmanuel Macron. Paris has
been exerting its efforts to look and sound
strategic and to acquire the mantle of the
European political leadership from Germany.
Berlin follows an ambitious approach, seemingly
awaiting the moment when sympathetic rhetoric
from Biden and his team towards the European
allies will take the shape of some concrete deeds.
This caution is well founded, as in 2021 Angela
Merkel is vacating the post of Chancellor and
Germany will have elections. Moreover, for
Berlin the change of the host in the White House
does not mean that the problem with the final
stage of construction of Nord Stream 2 will
somehow ease. This project was the apple of
discord between Germany and the US under
Trump, but Biden is also its ardent opponent.
Rome and Madrid are watching the behaviour of
Paris and Berlin preferring to wait and see. There
are states in Europe where the victory of Biden
was met not only with relief but also with mixed
feelings, even if on the side. Among them the
UK, Poland, and Hungary. Their ruling forces
have extracted sufficient profits from Trump’s
policies. Different variations of Euroscepticism
have used Trumpism (which is not the same as its
figure-head) for domestic purposes or as a
buttress in quarrels inside the EU. Now this
leverage is not there anymore.
Obviously, a part of Trump’s legacy will be
dismantled. A question is: to what extent, and what is
going to replace it? In general, whichever European
country we take, there are no overwhelming illusions
that Biden’s presidency can deeply overhaul US
strategy, which has solidified in the past four years.
Firstly, putting aside the peculiarities of Trump’s
character and his eccentricity, a lot in US
behaviour has been quite familiar. It would be
wrong to say that he is a non-systemic politician,
as he represents the views and psychology of half
of the US population, and moreover a significant
part of the business, political, and military elites.
Few people disagree that Trump would have won
the election if not for the pandemic. US policy
towards the Middle East, excluding Iran, and
towards China, Russia, and the EU were to a large
extent a continuation of the previous political
trends. In a number of cases Trump was over the
top, but on the whole he was within the broad
framework of modern US foreign policy.
Secondly, in view of Trumpism’s popularity it
would be ill-advised to prophesise what kind of a
political character will move into the White
House in four years’ time and to insist
unreservedly that the outgoing presidency was a
historical aberration. Is there not a chance that
the presidency of Biden will turn out to be a
pause before Trumpism and the Republicans,
who continue to control the Senate, are back in
the White House?
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Thirdly, indeed for Europeans Biden will be a more
convenient counterpart then his predecessor, but not
necessarily in everything. For example, the president
elect is an ideologically driven politician to a much
bigger extent than Trump. Therefore, the overall
relationship between the US and China will not
significantly improve, and can even deteriorate
further. Intensifying Washington — Beijing
confrontation will make the situation for the EU even
more difficult than before, placing it between a rock
and a hard place. Of course, the matter is not just
Biden’s ideological preferences, but the fact that China
continues to emerge as the main competitor of the
US; the pandemic has made this trend only more
pronounced.
Nor are there writings on the wall about any positive
shifts in relations between Washington and Ankara.
On the contrary, the president elect and his most
ardent European allies may close ranks against
Ankara, not just on the basis of geopolitics but on the
issues of human rights and authoritarianism. In this
case, the state of interaction between Turkey and the
EU, and the situation in NATO, may go from bad to
worse.
Clearly, the continuity between the previous and the
new administration is far from comprehensive. If
Hillary Clinton or Biden had been the American
president in the last four years, the US would not have
abandoned the Paris climate accord, ruined the
nuclear deal with Iran, blocked the functioning of the
World Trade Organisation, and withdrawn payments
to the World Health Organisation. On these issues
Washington will revamp its policies, which will be
welcomed in the world.
The niche in which Biden’s victory is expected to
improve the present realities in Russia-Western
relations is the sphere of arms control. On the one
hand, the chain of events which brought the
destruction of the Intermediate-range nuclear forces
treaty, was launched by the George W. Bush
Administration and was followed by Obama. The
ABM treaty was also scrapped by Bush, and
deployment of the US/NATO Aegis-Ashore missile
defence systems has been a constant of the American
policy. On the other hand, chances are higher that
under Biden the New START (Strategic arms
reduction treaty) may be prolonged for the maximum
period of five years, instead of one year if Trump had
survived the elections.
Also there is a hope that after 20 January 2021 the new
presidency will be conducive to the preservation of
the Open Skies treaty, which the US left on 22
November. They did not just abandon it, but started
to press those allies who still abide by the agreement
de facto to sabotage it. In Russia there is an
overwhelming consensus that the preservation of
both the New START and the Open Skies treaty is in
the national interest of the country.
Apart from that, a possibility exists that starting from
2021 Russia and the US might find enough political
will to tackle an awful situation in the sphere of
conventional arms control in Europe, where Russia
and NATO military forces face one another. Given
the tensions in NATO-Russia contact zones, regional
stabilising measures should be considered. Re-
establishing security dialogue and military contacts are
urgently needed. There are many specialists and
former or current state officials in Russia, Europe, and
the US who adhere to this position. One of the fresh
products of this thinking process are the
“Recommendations of the Participants of the Expert
Dialogue on NATO–Russia Military Risk Reduction
in Europe”, a document published on 7 December
2020 and supported by more than 130 well-known
signatories.
Prof. Dr. Alexey Gromyko Is a Corresponding
Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
Director, RAS Institute of Europe; President,
Association of European Studies (Russia).
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EU-US RELATIONS: A NEW AGENDA FOR
TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS
STEVEN BLOCKMANS
Damaged…
President Donald Trump's unabashed
unilateralism has hurt EU-US relations. He has
called the European Union a “foe” and “worse
than China, just smaller”. He celebrated Brexit
and has encouraged other member states to leave
the bloc. He has bullied democratic leaders such
as Angela Merkel and embraced autocrats like
Viktor Orbán. The latter has not helped the EU
institutions in their search for supranational
mechanisms to enforce compliance with rule of
law conditions for membership.
Not only did the 45th US President not re-engage
with the transatlantic trade and investment
agenda which Barack Obama abandoned; he
imposed “national security” tariffs on steel and
aluminium imports from European allies, and
threatened that more might follow. He also
subjected European businesses to American
extra-territorial jurisdiction more enthusiastically
than any of his predecessors, in particular over his
withdrawal of the US from the Iran nuclear deal.
Trump’s retreat from the Paris climate deal, the
INF treaty, the Open Skies agreement, and the
WHO as well as his attacks on the WTO have
rocked many Europeans’ belief that they share
common ground with their most important ally.
In fact, Trump has been disdainful of European
priorities, from climate change or efforts to
improve global health, to human rights and
development assistance.
As a result, US relations with the EU have
become largely dysfunctional, and this at a time
when unprecedented global health, economic,
and security challenges demand robust
transatlantic leadership.
To be sure, transatlantic disarray is not due solely
to Trump. After more than a decade of crisis
management, the EU has seemed as likely to fall
apart as to come together over the COVID-19
pandemic. The coronavirus crisis has ravaged
societies and economies. Whereas EU Member
States reached a political agreement on a historic
recovery package and a seven-year budget, those
debates have also revealed ongoing differences
on rule of law conditionality in the disbursement
of funding that could widen once the worst of the
pandemic is over.
…but not beyond repair
A second term for Trump would have probably
meant a further erosion of US democracy and the
post-war liberal order. The EU would have no
longer been able to put off facing the
consequences of having an illiberal, anti-trade
partner across the pond.
With the victory of Joe Biden, there are four years
to revive an alliance of democracies, face up to
authoritarian powers and closed economies that
exploit the openness on which American and
European societies are built, and shape those
parts of multilateralism that serve transatlantic
interests.
During the campaign, candidate Biden
emphasised that “Europe is the cornerstone of
our engagement with the world” and “our
catalyst for global cooperation”. As a passionate
Transatlanticist and multilateralist, Biden’s first
instinct will be to turn to the EU as America’s
indispensable partner of first resort when it
comes to addressing international challenges.
America, heal thyself before you attend to
others
But the President elect’s most immediate
challenge is likely to be an unenviable confluence
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of crises at home: the ongoing pandemic, deep
social tensions, continued recession, and
astronomical levels of government debt. Joe
Biden will also have to contend with a much
stronger radical conservative opposition than
Barack Obama ever did. This is likely to slow
down the implementation of his ambitious policy
agenda.
America’s partners should not be surprised, and
should in fact welcome, the likelihood that
Biden’s initial focus will necessarily be on
domestic challenges. After all, the US is unlikely
to be the type of consistent, outward-looking
partner that Europeans need and want if it does
not beat COVID-19, generate economic growth,
and work to heal its deep domestic divisions.
Reinvent transatlantic relations
Even if the US re-joins the WHO, the Paris
climate accords, the Iran nuclear deal, and works
to strengthen the WTO, Biden’s foreign policy
will be more assertive and transactional in
response to popular domestic demand.
Europeans should not kid themselves into
believing that transatlantic relations will return to
the status quo ante. In all but name, the rallying
cry of “America First” is here to stay. As a
presidential candidate, Biden has vowed to
prioritise investment in US green energy,
childcare, education, and infrastructure over any
new trade deals. He has also called for expanded
“Buy American” provisions in federal
procurement, which has long been an irritant in
trade relations with the EU. Also, the EU will
likely be forced to muster all the political will and
resources at its disposal to carve a third way
between the US and China, an issue on which
there exists strong bipartisan support.
The greatest danger to a vital transatlantic bond
will be Europe’s temptation to believe that the
relationship can go back to “business as usual”.
That would be a mistake. The EU-US alliance as
we have known it is dead. A Biden administration
will not want to “restore” the transatlantic
partnership; it will want to reinvent it for a world
full of economic, climate, and health challenges,
more diffuse power, rapid technological changes,
greater insecurities, and intensified global
competition.
A reinvented transatlantic partnership will
demand more, not less, of Europe. The
European Commission and the EU’s High
Representative for foreign affairs and security
policy have understood this. In a call on the US
to seize a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to
forge a new global alliance, they have made a
detailed pitch to bury the hatchet on the sources
of tension of the Trump era, and meet the
“strategic challenge” posed by China. The idea is
to revitalise the transatlantic partnership by
cooperating on everything, from fighting
cybercrime and shaping the digital regulatory
environment, to screening sensitive foreign
investments and fighting deforestation. An EU-
US Summit in the first half of 2021 could be the
moment to launch the new transatlantic agenda.
Coming up with a common approach will hinge
significantly on the two economies’ ability to
bridge existing divides over tech policy. Using
their combined influence, a transatlantic
technology space could indeed form the
backbone of a wider coalition of like-minded
democracies.
Dr. Steven Blockmans is Director of Research
at the Centre for European Policy Studies
(CEPS) in Brussels.
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BIDEN’S VICTORY AND EUROPE’S
STRATEGIC AUTONOMY
SVEN BISCOP
The president of the United States making a deal
with the president of Russia behind Europe’s
back: that is just one example of something that,
thanks to Joe Biden’s victory, the European
Union will not have to worry about for a while.
For a while, for “Trumpism” has been defeated
but far from destroyed – not with Donald Trump
winning over 47% of the popular vote. More than
73 out of 150 million American voters either
agree with enough of Trump’s views to vote for
him, or, even if they don’t, somehow find the
prospect of a Democratic president so abhorrent
that they pinch their noses and vote for him
anyway. If the Republican party stays in the hands
of people like attorney general William Barr and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who believe that
the president is above the law in the US, and that
he can set the law outside the US, another
authoritarian populist could very well be voted
into the White House in a next election. Any such
future “Trumpist” is likely to be far more
dangerous than Trump himself ever was, if he
translates Trump’s political instincts into method
and strategy instead of whims and tweets.
It would be very short-sighted therefore for the
EU to give up on its objective of strategic
autonomy. The EU Global Strategy formally
introduced this objective in June 2016, when
everybody still thought that Hillary Clinton
would comfortably win the elections. It was not
adopted in reaction to Trump’s victory and
should not be abandoned because of his defeat.
Strategic autonomy is a European project for the
coming decades, not for the next American
presidential term.
Yes, Strategic Autonomy
Strategic autonomy, strategic sovereignty, a pole
of the multipolar world, a great power: it all
amounts to the same aspiration – the EU has to
be an independent global player on a par with the
US, China, and Russia. Why? Because (1) the EU
cannot count on any other player to defend the
European interest in its place, not even on the
US. After four years of Trump even the
staunchest Atlanticist should have understood
that even the US acts against the European
interest at times. And because (2) in a world of
continent-sized great powers, the only way for
the Europeans to defend their own interests is to
integrate and achieve the same scale, and that is
only possible through the EU.
Strategic autonomy does not mean that the EU
seeks to decouple from the US. The only people
using that term in earnest are those in the US who
want to decouple the American economy from
China. Which is exactly what the EU wants to
avoid, for such a decoupling could only lead to a
rivalry without end, an even deeper economic
recession than the COVID-19 pandemic has
already caused, and the end of multilateral
cooperation to solve global problems and
prevent great power rivalry from escalating.
Instead, the EU wants to work with all great
powers to keep multilateralism alive and reform
it, to maintain a global level economic playing
field, and to prevent the world from falling apart
in exclusive spheres of interests and rival blocs.
Rather than put that agenda on ice because Biden
has been elected, the EU should grasp the chance
to convince him of it. The EU must pursue its
own grand strategy regardless of who occupies
the White House. But a Democratic incumbent is
an opportunity to do so without causing
unnecessary friction, first of all, and hopefully in
far closer cooperation with the US again, so that
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much more can be achieved – before “Trumpism”
surges again. Europeans certainly welcomed Biden’s
announcement that he will re-join the Paris climate
agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, and the World
Health Organisation. But will the new administration
embrace a broader agenda of reviving
multilateralism? Will it continue confronting China
for the mere reason that it is a peer competitor of the
US, or will it define more specific strategic objectives
that leave open the possibility of an accommodation
with China, provided it observes certain rules?
A lot depends indeed on China’s future behaviour.
Strategic autonomy was never about equidistance:
the EU prefers to defend its interest together with
the US, and is obviously much closer to it than to
China. If China turns into an aggressive power, the
EU must ally with the US to halt any expansionist
designs. But even authoritarian China does have
legitimate international interests, and the right to
pursue those in a legitimate way; its success at that
must be an incentive to do better ourselves, not to
excoriate China. Will Beijing understand that Biden’s
victory is a chance for it too? Give those in the EU
and the US who still believe cooperation is possible
something to work with, and workable great power
relations could yet be preserved. Persist in
obstinately refusing effective reciprocity in economic
relations, and see the camp that clamours for
confrontation grow ever stronger.
Ambition not Nostalgia
Atlanticists tend to decry European strategic
autonomy as unrealistic. But that is circular
reasoning: Europe is weak and dependent on the US,
therefore it is not allowed to express any serious
ambition, and so it remains forever weak and
dependent on the US. Will the US forever accept
that? Again, Trump should have taught Europeans
otherwise. One may be nostalgic for the transatlantic
harmony of the past (and it is probably more
harmonious with hindsight than it looked at the
time). One must be grateful for the American
contribution to liberating Europe from Nazism and
for safeguarding western Europe from Stalinism
afterwards. But past merit does not excuse today’s
mistakes, nor does it warrant blind confidence in the
future. Likewise, the hopeful aim of future Chinese
good behaviour does not warrant condoning today’s
transgressions. Strategy is a rational business: one
must judge each action in its own right, in light of
one’s interests.
Reason shows, that the EU cannot achieve the same
degree of strategic autonomy in all areas at once. The
EU is a global economic power, and it is learning
how to get better at geo-economics and translate
economic power into political leverage. Europe’s
military power is lagging behind. Not mainly,
however, because it does not spend enough: in 2019,
the EU-27 spent $214.8 billion on defence, more
than China ($181 billion) and much more than
Russia ($48.2 billion). The only reason why the EU
is not a military power on a par with its economic
power is because, against reason, its Member States
so far refuse to apply to defence the same key to
achieve power: integration. If they would integrate
their militaries, they could build up an EU pillar of
NATO that in conventional military terms could
stand tall on its own. That balance, and not perennial
subservience, is the key to NATO’s continued
relevance on both sides of the Atlantic.
The EU must actively engage the US as an equal,
therefore. Europeans can count themselves lucky
that Joe Biden won. They should not spoil their luck
and waste the opportunity to advance their agenda.
on specific niches.
Prof. Dr. Sven Biscop, an Honorary Fellow of
the European Security and Defence College,
is Director of the Europe in the World
Programme at the Egmont – Royal Institute
for International Relations in Brussels, and
professor at Ghent University.
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ENDNOTES 1 Transcript: Dialogues on American Foreign Policy and World Affairs: A Conversation with Former Deputy Secretary of
State Antony Blinken. Washington, Hudson Institute, 9 July 2020, https://www.hudson.org/research/16210-transcript-
dialogues-on-american-foreign-policy-and-world-affairs-a-conversation-with-former-deputy-secretary-of-state-antony-
blinken.
2 Steven Erlanger, “As Trump Exits, Rifts in Europe Widen Again”. In: The New York Times, 24 November 2020,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/world/europe/trump-macron-merkel-france-germany.html.
3 Josep Borrell, Let’s Make the Most of This New Chapter in EU-US Relations. Brussels, EEAS, 9 November 2020,
https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/88393/let%E2%80%99s-make-most-new-chapter-eu-us-
relations_en.
4 Read out of the phone call between President Charles Michel and US President-elect Joe Biden. Brussels, European
Council Press release, 23 November 2020, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/11/23/read-out-
of-the-phone-call-between-president-charles-michel-and-us-president-elect-joe-biden/#.
5 Uri Dadush & Abdulelah Darandary, The impact of the new Asian trade mega-deal on the European Union. Brussels,
Bruegel, 19 November 2020, https://www.bruegel.org/2020/11/the-impact-of-the-new-asian-trade-mega-deal-on-the-
european-union/.
6 Uri Dadush & Abdulelah Darandary, op. cit.
The opinions expressed in this Policy Brief are those of the author(s) alone, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of the Egmont Institute. Founded in 1947, EGMONT – Royal Institute for International Relations is an independent and non-profit Brussels-based think tank dedicated to interdisciplinary research. www.egmontinstitute.be © Egmont Institute 2020. All rights reserved.
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